I am Lynne Foster Shifriss. I created this blog as a way for people to post memories or thoughts or funny stories or pictures about Mary Catherine Webster. Whether you called her "Mary" or "Mary Kay" or "Kit," I think it's pretty easy to agree that she was a person with whom many people wanted to be friends. I felt that way about her ever since we met in the fall of 1972 at Forest Quad, in our freshman year at Indiana University in Bloomington. I always felt so lucky to know her.
As a gift to her friends, her family -- to all of us -- we can share on this blog either by commenting on a post (just click where it says "comments" at the bottom of a post) or by clicking on the orange button at the top and signing in (user name = marycatherinewebster@gmail.com, password = tribute) to do a post of your own. If you do your own post, you can easily put in a photo that you have in your computer. You can always email me at lshifriss@yahoo.com if you need any help with this. If you don't know how to post and want to email a story to me, I will post it for you.
I know so many people are hurting now, and in the next few days, I intend to tell some stories and hopefully find some pictures to share....and I hope you do, too.
Thanks so much,
Lynne
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During 30 years of friendship, Kit and I spent hundreds of hours watching movies together. We spent even more time discussing them--immediately after a screening, if we were lucky enough to be together. But usually we reviewed and rehashed films during our lengthy and frequent phone chats.
The day after her sudden death, a flood of films rushed through my mind. What were the first movies I had seen with Kit? What were the last ones we discussed? What was the last film she saw with Phil, and with each of her kids? What about all those wonderful and unusual movies at the RMWFF she so adored and shared with so many others.
Despite the fact we both considered ourselves fairly sophisticated and discriminating film buffs, the recurring image in my mind earlier this week was of a really BAD movie we had seen together, and of Kit's unique ability to sense good from bad, and to simply, and sometimes outrageously, say so.
It was a hot, humid day in the summer of 1977. Kit and Laurie Sprague (a college friend of mine who had introduced me to Kit, whom she had known since high school) and I decided to cool off in one of Michigan City's air-conditioned movie theaters. The pickens, I recall, were slim, but we finally settled on "You Light Up My Life," a film known for its popular theme song made famous by Debbie Boone, but actually lip-synched by some utterly forgettable actress. We were prepared for mediocre, but figured there would be some redeeming features of the film to make it worth our time (which we had lots of in those days) and our money (which was in much shorter supply).
About twenty minutes into the film, Kit looked at Laurie and at me, and pronounced, "this film is so bad, we should demand our money back."
Laurie and I looked at each other, wondering if it was even possible to request a refund. Kit, on the other hand, was both confident and determined. Laurie and I made our way out of the darkened theater while Kit made a bee-line for the box office. There she politely but firmly informed the person in the booth that "the movie was simply so bad we would not be able to continue watching it." Whereupon our tickets were fully refunded and we headed straight for an ice cream store.
The next year, "You Light Up My Life" actually won an Oscar for its theme song, but it remained the bottom-line barometer of bad films for us over the years.
Kit was a radiant and brilliant light in my life. A firecracker who relished burning from both ends, she lit up many lives and illuminated many truths along the way.
Terry Fife
Chicago, Illinois
I didn't meet Mary until about nine years ago, when we started working together at Grace Church. I took another job a couple of years after that, and then three years later we left that parish as well, but seeing less of Mary was my only regret in making either of those changes.
The last year was tough in many ways. There were so many stresses in Mary's professional life, and some absurdities. For example, the last time we had coffee together we had to sneak around Colorado Springs looking for a place where no one who would have disapproved of Mary's friendship with a dissident former parishioner would have seen us together. But we laughed about it as well. We laughed a lot.
My husband has always said that the happiest he'd ever seen me was one time about three or four years ago when Mary and I went out to lunch, driving the brand-new bug. Nobody knew yet how troublesome that car would prove to be to the Websters, but it was a beautiful day and we had the top down. My husband, quite by chance, drove by us as we were headed to the restaurant and said we were both laughing too hard to speak.
I can't tell you how many lives she changed around here, but we will all be striving the rest of our lives to have been worthy of her friendship.
“Let’s Have a Show”
from Sally Ziegler
Among her many gifts my dear friend Mary had a sense of occasion that was amazing. A routine staff birthday party at Grace Church was made special by her adding a nosegay of flowers or by choosing the honoree's favorite flavor. But it was in her work with children that Mary’s sense of the festive made itself most evident in the joy she gave to young children. Every child In the Sunday School received a birthday card from Miss Mary and every one included a coupon for a cone at the best ice cream store in town.
Mary and I worked together for nine years at Grace & St. Stepehn's in Colrado where I serve as a deacon and was always grateful for Mary's intent to study to be ordained as a deacon, too.
On Palm Sunday there were donkeys for the children to pat and ride if they were brave (and small) enough, bringing Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem to life in the concrete thoughts of the little ones. ( We won’t dwell on the year when one of the jennies died in childbirth the night before). There was the wonderful but stressful year when Mary wanted to make the hymn about a green blade springing come to life. She and her own children blew out dozens of eggs so she could spend hours planting half-shells with grass seed that needed to be watered and tended for weeks so each child in the Sunday School received one of these little jewels on Easter morning. My grandchildren who are half Jewish treasured these gifts from Mary for weeks after Easter was past.
One of her best “shows” was the butterfly release on the day of Pentecost which also marked the graduation of Sunday School children into middle school and Youth Group. Only Mary could have found a source for dormant -- or at least passive -- butterflies that arrived in tiny cellophane envelopes to be sent soaring into the blue Colorado sky signifying the new life ahead for the young people. In spite of the year that most of them froze in transit Mary's sense of occasion and her joy in the children’s growth remain important memories for many here in Colorado Springs.
My personal “best of show” was in December, 2005, in Children’s Chapel. Mary and I shared the responsibility for this weekly worship service for children ages 3-6. Every Sunday morning was an adventure that gave new meaning to to the phrase “herding cats”. But on the third Sunday in December Mary added her own unique gift to me and to the children. In celebration of my 70th birthday she had each of the children come up to me in front of the altar and give me a beautiful Peace rose and a hug. This gift of friendship and of love will always live in my heart and symbolize to me Mary’s amazing gift of joy in the moment.
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